I came across this picture and figured it was some joke, then I googled his name and this is what popped up. It's laughable really except his bro is in the Black House.

PORTLAND, Ore. — A New York man who pleaded guilty to murder in Oregon in exchange for buckets of fried chicken will get calzones and pizza to go with his life sentence.

Tremayne Durham, 33, of New York City, admitted last month that he fatally shot Adam Calbreath, 39, of Gresham, in June 2006. Durham wanted to sell ice cream and ordered an $18,000 truck from an Oregon company. He later changed his mind, but the company wouldn't provide a refund.

The would-be ice cream man came to Oregon and killed Calbreath, a former employee of the company, while looking for its owner, authorities said.

Durham agreed to plead guilty to murder _ but only if he could get a break from jail food. The judge agreed and granted Durham a feast of KFC chicken, Popeye's chicken, mashed potatoes, coleslaw, carrot cake and ice cream.

After Wednesday's sentencing, Durham was to get the rest of the deal _ calzones, lasagna, pizza and ice cream, his defense attorney confirmed. They will pay the tab.

Durham also got married Wednesday in a civil ceremony at the Portland courthouse. The wedding to Vanessa Davis, 48, also of New York City, was not part of the plea deal that will give Durham a chance for parole after 30 years.

Deputy District Attorney Josh Lamborn said Multnomah County Judge Eric Bergstrom made the right call in allowing the unusual plea agreement because it saved the expense of a trial and possible appeals.

I've recently watched this film, it is a fascinating look into Iranian society and I was amazed at what I learned. For one, freedom hating Tehran has more plastic surgeries than LA! That isn't a fact the controlled media wants you to know, they want you to think Iranians are backwords, racist, jew hating, camel jockeys however that isn't the case at all.

If you want to watch a higher quality version of this film, it is available via Liberty Torrent

December 29, 2009 "Information Clearing House" -- On Christmas eve when Christians were celebrating the Prince of Peace, the New York Times delivered forth a call for war. “There’s only one way to stop Iran,” declared Alan J. Kuperman, and that is “military air strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities.”

Kuperman is described as the “director of the Nuclear Proliferation Prevention Program at the University of Texas at Austin,” but his Christmas eve call to war relies on disinformation and contradiction, not on objective scholarly analysis.

For example, Kuperman contradicts the unanimous report of America’s 16 intelligence agencies, the reports of the International Atomic Energy Agency, and Russian intelligence with his claim that Iran has a nuclear weapon program. Astonishingly, it does not occur to Kuperman that readers might wonder how an academic bureaucrat in Austin, Texas, has better information than these authorities.

Kuperman is so determined to damn President Obama’s plan to have other countries enrich Iran’s uranium for Iran’s nuclear energy program and medical isotopes that Kuperman commits astounding blunders. After claiming that Iran has a “bomb program,” Kuperman claims that “Iran’s uranium contains impurities” and that Ahmadinejad’s threat “to enrich uranium domestically to the 20 percent level . . . is a bluff, because even if Iran could further enrich its impure uranium, it lacks the capacity to fabricate the uranium into fuel elements.”

What was the New York Times op ed editor thinking when he approved Kuperman’s article? Iran, Kuperman writes, needs “90 percent enriched uranium” to have weapons-grade material, but cannot reach 20 percent or even make fuel elements for its nuclear energy. So, how is Iran going to produce a bomb? Yet, Kuperman writes that “we have reached the point where air strikes are the only plausible option with any prospect of preventing Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons. The sooner the United States takes action, the better.”

It could not be made any clearer that, as with the US invasion of Iraq, a military attack on Iran has nothing to do with weapons of mass destruction. An “Iranian nuke” is just another canard behind which hides an undeclared agenda.

One wonders about Kuperman’s non-proliferation credentials. How does a wanton military attack on a country encourage non-proliferation? Aren’t America’s bullying, threats and acts of war more likely to encourage countries to seek nuclear weapons?

At the end of the first decade of the 21st century, the United States has wars ongoing in Iraq where the ancient Chaldean Christian community was destroyed--not by Saddam Hussein but by the neoconservatives’ illegal invasion of Iraq--in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yeman, and Sudan. The US initiated a war, which it lost, between its puppet ruler in the former Soviet province of Georgia and Russia.

The US, the world’s greatest supporter of terrorism, is the main financier of terrorist groups that stage attacks within Iran, and US money succeeded in financing protests against President Ahmadinejad’s re-election and in dividing the ruling Islamic clerics. It was American money, weapons, and diplomatic cover that enabled the Israeli war crimes against the Lebanese people during 2006 and against Palestinian civilians in Gaza during 2008-2009, crimes documented in the Goldstone Report.

Iran has never interfered in US internal affairs, but the US has a long record of interfering in Iranian affairs. In 1953 the US overthrew Iran’s popular prime minister, Mohammed Mosaddeq and installed a puppet who tortured Iranians who desired political independence.

Despite this and other American offenses against Iran, Ahmadinejad has repeatedly expressed Iran’s interest to be on friendly terms with the United States, only to be repeatedly rebuffed. The US wants war with Iran in order to expand US world hegemony.

One might expect a non-proliferation expert to take history into account, but Kuperman fails to do so. Kuperman also has nothing to say about Israel’s, India’s and Pakistan’s nuclear weapons. Unlike Iran, none of these countries are signatories to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Israel, India, and Pakistan all developed their nuclear weapons in secret, and many experts believe Israel had American help, an act of treason. All three countries have been rewarded by Washington despite their perfidy. Why is Kuperman concerned about Iran, which submits to the IAEA inspections, but is unconcerned with Israel, a country that has never permitted a single inspection?

The answer is that the Israel Lobby, the US military-security complex, and the “Christian” Zionists have succeeded in demonizing Iran. Every real expert knows that an Iranian nuclear weapon would have no function other than deterring an attack on Iran. Ever since the US lost its monopoly on nuclear weapons, after using them offensively and pointlessly against a defeated Japan, nuclear weapons have served no purpose other than deterrence.

The US has no conflicting economic interests with Iran. Iran is simply a supplier of oil, an important one. A US attack on Iran, such as the one advocated by Kuperman, would most likely shut down oil flows to the West through the Strait of Hormuz. This might benefit refiners, who sell gasoline to the West and could charge enormous prices, but no one else would benefit.

Adding to the war cry are congregations of fake Christians. A great number of them, organized by someone’s money under the banner, “Christian Leaders for a Nuclear-free Iran,” has written to Congress demanding sanctions against Iran that amount to an act of war. The roll call http://www.clnfi.org/ includes the “Christian” Zionist John Hagee, who, according to reports, denigrates Jesus Christ and preaches to his illiterate congregation that it is God’s will for Americans to fight and die for Israel, the oppressor of the Palestinian people.

Among the signatories of the “Christians” demanding an act of war against Iran, are Dr. Pat Robertson, president of Christian Broadcasting Network, Nixon-era criminal Chuck Colson, and Richard Land, president of Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, Southern Baptist Convention. Obviously, for southern baptists ethics means murdering Islamists, and religious liberty excludes everyone but “Christian” Zionists.

It is a simple matter for an educated person to make fools of these morons who profess to be Christians. However, these morons have vast constituencies numbering in the tens of millions of Americans. There are, in fact, more of them than there are intelligent, informed, moral, and real Christian Americans.

The votes of the morons will prevail.

In the second decade of the 21st century, America’s Zionist wars against Islam will expand. America’s wars in behalf of Israel’s territorial expansion will complete the bankruptcy of America. The Treasury’s bonds to finance the US government’s enormous deficits will lack for buyers. Therefore, the bonds will be monetized by the Federal Reserve. The result will be rising rates of inflation. The inflation will destroy the dollar as world reserve currency, and the US will no longer be able to pay for its imports. Shortages will appear, including food and gasoline, and “Superpower America” will find itself pressed to the wall as a third world country unable to pay its debts.

America has been brought low, both morally and economically, by its obeisance to the Israel Lobby. Even Jimmy Carter, a former President of the United States and Governor of Georgia recently had to apologize to the Israel Lobby for his honest criticisms of Israel’s inhumane treatment of the occupied Palestinians in order for his grandson to be able to run for a seat in the Georgia state senate. http://www.counterpunch.org/amiri12252009.html

This should tell the macho super-power American tough guys who really runs “their” country.

Former actor-turned-economic and political advisor Ben Stein claimed Ron Paul was using an “anti-Semitic argument” when Congressman Paul argued the United States should refrain from bombing Yemen in a December 28 interview on CNN's Larry King Live.

Rep. Paul, a Republican from Texas, has argued for removing U.S. soldiers from the Middle East because the American presence there is increasingly seen by many Muslims as a foreign occupation force. Responding to Rep. Paul's argument that Americans should mind their own business and not become the policeman of the world, Stein argued: “No, we're not occupiers. That's the same anti-Semitic argument we've heard over and over again. That's the same anti-Semitic argument we've heard over and over again.”

Rep. Paul responded by saying, “That is a vicious attack,” and Stein defended his statement by saying, “Look, that is not a vicious attack.”

Stein's attack on Dr. Paul is only the latest gaffe by the former movie actor. Stein served as a frequent financial advisor on CNBC in 2007, where he doled out terrible predictions in a debate with Euro-Pacific Capital President Peter Schiff. Faced with dire warnings about the coming housing market crash from Schiff, Stein predicted a healthy housing market. “Sub-prime is tiny. Sub-prime is a tiny, tiny blip,” Stein stressed, adding:

The financials, as I keep saying, are just super-bargains. I predict that, like, Merrill Lynch which is an astonishingly well-run company. Did you know that a couple of days ago it was trading at barely more than seven times earnings? Financials typically trade at a low P-E [price to earnings ratio], but this is a joke. This stock, they might as well be giving it away in cereal boxes and giving it away, that's how cheap it is.

Ben Stein made that investment advice when Merrill Lynch was selling at $76.04 per share. That value quickly sunk to $21 per share and the firm only avoided bankruptcy after a 2008 Bank of America merger that nearly bankrupted the banking giant (Bank of America is the largest bank in the United States). Stein also predicted the stock market would continue to climb during the August 2007 CNBC show. “I think stocks will be a heck of a lot higher a year from now than they are now,” Stein announced confidently. When he made this prediction on August 18, 2007, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was bouncing between 13,000 and 14,000, but within a year and a half, the DJIA had sunk to less than 7,000.

Throughout the heated debate, Stein never even tried to explain why Paul's contention that the United States should not be the policeman of the world is anti-Semitic. Ben Stein's accusation of “anti-Semitic argument” is clearly as accurate as his financial predictions several years ago. Perhaps that's why some Ron Paul supporters have started a “Win Ben Stein's Apology” page on Facebook, a play on the former actor's old game show Win Ben Stein's Money. Larry King announced that he would invite both people back onto the show December 29 to continue the heated conversation.

The argument began when Dr. Paul noted that American foreign policy experts make bombing decisions while “never asking the question: What is the motive?” He went on to explain that the most recent would-be airline hijacker “said why he did it. He said because we bombed Yemen two weeks ago. That was his motive.” Dr. Paul then went on to explain that the United States is falling into the interventionist trap:

Osama bin Laden said that he has a plan for America. First, he wants to bog us down in the Middle East in a no-win war. He wants to bankrupt this country, demoralize us, as well as have us do things that motivate people to join his radical movement. It seems like we have fallen into his trap.

Dr. Paul (he's an obstetrician as well as a Congressman) noted that the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, now in their seventh and ninth years respectively, have spurred terrorist attacks from Muslims who want the foreign troops out of their countries. Ben Stein responded to Dr. Paul by saying, “I never heard anything quite like that in my whole life. What he's basically saying is that we are doing something wrong by defending ourselves. Look, if these terrorists are trying to kill the government of Yemen, we've got to help defend them. They are our friends.”

That was an odd retort, since it leaves the question of who the “ourselves” is in Stein's sentence. While the question of whether Yemen is a government that ranks among “our friends” is debatable at best (it's a corrupt pseudo-democracy with a horrible human-rights record), it hardly stands to reason that defending a rather insignificant and corrupt government on the other end of the planet is equivalent to defending U.S. soil.

Asked again why terrorists were targeting the United States rather than other free countries, Stein replied, “They're terrorists and murderers because they are psychos. They're terrorists and murderers because they are psychos, same as all terrorists and murderers.” But, of course, if they are “psychos,” then they don't act with any reason. And if they don't act with any reason, then there's no reason to believe they would target the United States more than any other country. In fact, if they are indeed insane as Ben Stein suggests, there's less chance of them attacking the United States than the country where they are currently living because attacking the United States requires the kind of travel and planning that the insane rarely undertake.

For any non-scientist interested in the climate debate, there is nothing better than a ready primer to guide you through the complexities of atmospheric physics – the “hardest” science of climatology. Here we outline the essential points made by Dr. Gerhard Gerlich, a respected German physicist, that counter the bogus theory of Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW).

Before going further, it’s worth bearing in mind that no climatologist ever completed any university course in climatology–that’s how new this branch of science really is. Like any new science the fall-back position of a cornered AGW proponent is the dreaded “appeal to authority” where the flustered debater, out of his or her depth, will say, “Well, professor so-and-so says it’s true – so it must be true.” Don’t fall for that proxy tree-ring counter’s gambit any longer. Here is the finest shredding of junk science you will ever read.
In a recently revised and re-published paper, Dr Gerlich debunks AGW and shows that the IPCC “consensus” atmospheric physics model tying CO2 to global warming is not only unverifiable, but actually violates basic laws of physics, i.e. the First and Second Law of Thermodynamics. The latest version of this momentous scientific paper appears in the March 2009 edition of the International Journal of Modern Physics.

The central claims of Dr. Gerlich and his colleague, Dr. Ralf Tscheuschner, include, but are not limited to:
1) The mechanism of warming in an actual greenhouse is different than the mechanism of warming in the atmosphere, therefore it is not a “greenhouse” effect and should be called something else.
2) The climate models that predict catastrophic global warming also result in a net heat flow from atmospheric greenhouse gasses to the warmer ground, which is in violation of the second law of thermodynamics.Essentially, any machine which transfers heat from a low temperature reservoir to a high temperature reservoir without external work applied cannot exist. If it did it would be a “perpetual motion machine” – the realm of pure sci-fi.

Gerlich’s and Tscheuschner’s independent theoretical study is detailed in a lengthy (115 pages), mathematically complex (144 equations, 13 data tables, and 32 figures or graphs), and well-sourced (205 references) paper. The German physicists prove that even if CO2 concentrations double (a prospect even global warming advocates admit is decades away), the thermal conductivity of air would not change more than 0.03%. They show that the classic concept of the glass greenhouse wholly fails to replicate the physics of Earth’s climate. They also prove that a greenhouse operates as a “closed” system while the planet works as an “open” system and the term “atmospheric greenhouse effect” does not occur in any fundamental work involving thermodynamics, physical kinetics, or radiation theory. All through their paper the German scientists show how the greenhouse gas theory relies on guesstimates about the scientific properties involved to “calculate” the chaotic interplay of such a myriad and unquantifiable array of factors that is beyond even the abilities of the most powerful of modern supercomputers.
The paper’s introduction states it neatly:

(a) there are no common physical laws between the warming phenomenon in glass houses and the fictitious atmospheric greenhouse effects, (b) there are no calculations to determine an average surface temperature of a planet, (c) the frequently mentioned difference of 33 degrees Celsius is a meaningless number calculated wrongly, (d) the formulas of cavity radiation are used inappropriately, (e) the assumption of a radiative balance is unphysical, (f) thermal conductivity and friction must not be set to zero, the atmospheric greenhouse conjecture is falsified.

This thorough debunking of the theory of man made warming disproves that there exists a mechanism whereby carbon dioxide in the cooler upper atmosphere exerts any thermal “forcing” effect on the warmer surface below. To do so would violate both the First and Second Laws of Thermodynamics. As there is no glass roof on the earth to trap the excess heat, it escapes upward into space.Thus we may conclude that the common sense axioms are preserved so that the deeper the ocean, the colder the water and heat rises, it does not fall. QED.

John O’Sullivan is a legal advocate and writer who for several years has litigated in government corruption and conspiracy cases in both the US and Britain. Visit his website.Note: Over 500 Diggs! Keep it alive with a Digg here

Just how often has the U.S. and NATO killed the Taliban in groups of 30 during 2009? The answer may surprise you:

Adnkronos, 12/07/2009: “Up to 30 suspected militants were killed in a NATO airstrike on a Taliban hideout in eastern Afghanistan close to the Pakistani border on Monday. The airstrike targeted the village of Sangar Dara in the mountainous Watapur district of Kunar province , the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said.”

SF Chronicle, 12/04/2009: “Air strikes in two areas of the Mohmand border region killed 30 suspected militants, a military statement said. It said the strikes were “highly successful” but provided no further details, including whether any civilians were hurt.”

Xinhua, 11/04/2009: “The military said that the troops have killed 30 more militants during the last 24 hours, bringing the total fatalities to 400, as the operation in the country’s tribal area steadily progressed towards the Taliban strongholds in South Waziristan.”

Xinhua, 08/31/2009: “At least 30 bodies of suspected Taliban fighters were recovered in northwest Pakistan’s insurgency-hit Swat valley on Monday, witnesses said. The Pakistani army said they were killed in fighting with the security forces.”

Calgary Times, 07/04/2009: “The attack included an attempted suicide truck bombing of the base in the Zirok district of southeastern Paktika province, local officials said. As many as 30 Taliban insurgents might have been killed when troops called in air strikes, they said.”

Straits Times, 06/15/2009: “Security officials in the region said that about 30 militants were killed in Mohmand agency, close to the provincial capital Peshawar.”

Monsters and Critics, 05/28/2009: “In another incident, the Afghan Defence Ministry said Thursday that its troops, backed by international forces, killed 30 suspected militants in neighbouring Khost province Wednesday after the militants attacked their joint base.”

Monsters and Critics, 05/14/2009: “At least 30 Taliban fighters were killed Thursday when government artillery fire destroyed their hideout in north-west Pakistan, residents and officials said, as concerns about the fate of thousands of refugees in the region grew amid an escalating humanitarian crisis. Up to 30 suspected militants were in the compound when it was hit, and the Taliban have moved the dead and injured to an undisclosed location, he said.”

Reuters, 01 April 2009: “U.S. and Afghan forces have killed 30 Taliban fighters, including a local commander, in an operation in Afghanistan’s southern province of Helmand, the Interior Ministry said on Wednesday.”

IRNA, 02/17/2009: “Suspected US drone fired missiles on a training camp of Taliban militants in a Pakistani tribal region on Monday, killing around 30 people, witnesses and official sources said.”

New York Times, 01/01/2009: “On Wednesday, the Taliban came for revenge. A group of about 30 Taliban fighters swooped in on Mullah Salam’s house and opened fire. They killed at least 20 of his bodyguards, Afghan officials said. The Taliban claimed that they killed 32. Two of the attackers died.”

Alright, okay, you get the point. Just in case you thought this was limited to Afghanistan and Pakistan:

Reuters, 02/03/2009: “[Yemeni President Ali Abdullah] Saleh urged the leaders not to give refuge to militants and help the state’s fight against al-Qaeda by turning them in. A security official told Reuters authorities had detained 30 suspected militants in a renewed campaign.”

Oh yes, it’s the same Yemen. But look, hopping onto Google News and typing “30 Taliban” or “30 suspected militants” brings up literally dozens of stories each year, stretching back at least to 2005. Indeed, thirty seems to be the magic number when it comes to arresting or killing off Taliban and other militant fighters in Afghanistan.

The Security Crank is not the first one to notice this: mad props for the idea go to Moon of Alabama.
But the much more important point remains: how could we possibly have any idea how the war is going, here or anywhere else, when the bad guys seem only to die in groups of 30? The sheer ubiquity of that number in fatality and casualty counts is astounding, to the point where I don’t even pay attention to a story anymore when they use that magic number 30. It is an indicator either of ignorance or deliberate spin… but no matter the case, whenever you see the number 30 used in reference to the Taliban, you should probably close the tab and move onto something else, because you just won’t get a good sense of what happened there.

Oh, and shame to all you news agencies — all of you, since you’re all guilty — for playing along with such an obvious bit of number fudging. And weren’t we supposed to stop doing body counts anyway? That took all of a minute to reverse.

Update: Use ctrl-f (or CMD if you’re a mac-head) and search for “30″ or “thirty” on this 2009 timeline of events for Pakistan. It’s unreal.

Source: Bloomberg
To close out 2009, I decided to do something I bet no member of Congress has done -- actually read from cover to cover one of the pieces of sweeping legislation bouncing around Capitol Hill.

Hunkering down by the fire, I snuggled up with H.R. 4173, the financial-reform legislation passed earlier this month by the House of Representatives. The Senate has yet to pass its own reform plan. The baby of Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank, the House bill is meant to address everything from too-big-to-fail banks to asleep-at-the-switch credit-ratings companies to the protection of consumers from greedy lenders.

I quickly discovered why members of Congress rarely read legislation like this. At 1,279 pages, the “Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act” is a real slog. And yes, I plowed through all those pages. (Memo to Chairman Frank: “ystem” at line 14, page 258 is missing the first “s”.)

The reading was especially painful since this reform sausage is stuffed with more gristle than meat. At least, that is, if you are a taxpayer hoping the bailout train is coming to a halt.

If you’re a banker, the bill is tastier. While banks opposed the legislation, they should cheer for its passage by the full Congress in the New Year: There are huge giveaways insuring the government will again rescue banks and Wall Street if the need arises.

Nuggets Gleaned

Here are some of the nuggets I gleaned from days spent reading Frank’s handiwork:

-- For all its heft, the bill doesn’t once mention the words “too-big-to-fail,” the main issue confronting the financial system. Admitting you have a problem, as any 12- stepper knows, is the crucial first step toward recovery.
-- Instead, it supports the biggest banks. It authorizes Federal Reserve banks to provide as much as $4 trillion in emergency funding the next time Wall Street crashes. So much for “no-more-bailouts” talk. That is more than twice what the Fed pumped into markets this time around. The size of the fund makes the bribes in the Senate’s health-care bill look minuscule.
-- Oh, hold on, the Federal Reserve and Treasury Secretary can’t authorize these funds unless “there is at least a 99 percent likelihood that all funds and interest will be paid back.” Too bad the same models used to foresee the housing meltdown probably will be used to predict this likelihood as well.
More Bailouts
-- The bill also allows the government, in a crisis, to back financial firms’ debts. Bondholders can sleep easy -- there are more bailouts to come.
-- The legislation does create a council of regulators to spot risks to the financial system and big financial firms. Unfortunately this group is made up of folks who missed the problems that led to the current crisis.
-- Don’t worry, this time regulators will have better tools. Six months after being created, the council will report to Congress on “whether setting up an electronic database” would be a help. Maybe they’ll even get to use that Internet thingy.
-- This group, among its many powers, can restrict the ability of a financial firm to trade for its own account. Perhaps this section should be entitled, “Yes, Goldman Sachs Group Inc., we’re looking at you.”
Managing Bonuses
-- The bill also allows regulators to “prohibit any incentive-based payment arrangement.” In other words, banker bonuses are still in play. Maybe Bank of America Corp. and Citigroup Inc. shouldn’t have rushed to pay back Troubled Asset Relief Program funds.
-- The bill kills the Office of Thrift Supervision, a toothless watchdog. Well, kill may be too strong a word. That agency and its employees will be folded into the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. Further proof that government never really disappears.
-- Since Congress isn’t cutting jobs, why not add a few more. The bill calls for more than a dozen agencies to create a position called “Director of Minority and Women Inclusion.” People in these new posts will be presidential appointees. I thought too-big-to-fail banks were the pressing issue. Turns out it’s diversity, and patronage.
-- Not that the House is entirely sure of what the issues are, at least judging by the two dozen or so studies the bill authorizes. About a quarter of them relate to credit-rating companies, an area in which the legislation falls short of meaningful change. Sadly, these studies don’t tackle tough questions like whether we should just do away with ratings altogether. Here’s a tip: Do the studies, then write the legislation.
Consumer Protection
-- The bill isn’t all bad, though. It creates a new Consumer Financial Protection Agency, the brainchild of Elizabeth Warren, currently head of a panel overseeing TARP. And the first director gets the cool job of designing a seal for the new agency. My suggestion: Warren riding a fiery chariot while hurling lightning bolts at Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke.
-- Best of all, the bill contains a provision that, in the event of another government request for emergency aid to prop up the financial system, debate in Congress be limited to just 10 hours. Anything that can get Congress to shut up can’t be all bad.

Even better would be if legislators actually tackle the real issues stemming from the financial crisis, end bailouts and, for the sake of my eyes, write far, far shorter bills.

(David Reilly is a Bloomberg News columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.)
Click on “Send Comment” in the sidebar display to send a letter to the editor.
To contact the writer of this column: David Reilly at dreilly14@bloomberg.net

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

by Justin Raimondo
It just wouldn’t be Christmas in the age of terror if we didn’t have a visitation, ostensibly from al-Qaeda, now would it? ‘Tis the season, and all that. Recall Richard Reid, the "shoe bomber," arrested on December 22, 2001, for trying to blow up American Airlines flight 63, coming into Miami from Paris. As in the current case involving one Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab, a 23-year-old Nigerian, the explosive used was PETN, also known as pentaerythritol:Reid, like Umar, was subdued by passengers and airline attendants, and, to add yet another touch of déjà vu, Reid’s stunt led to the imposition of the take-off-your-shoes rule at airport security, just as Umar’s midair antics have now inspired the Transportation Safety Authority to inaugurate a spate of new regulations: nothing in your lap, please, and no getting up from your seat for a solid hour before landing.

Also please note the timing: the Reid incident occurred at a volatile moment, right after the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and just as the Bush administration was ramping up to invade both Afghanistan and Iraq. Umar, the lap bomber – so called because he apparently had his explosive device hidden in his pants – also leaps onto the international stage at a sensitive time, when President Obama is launching a major offensive in Afghanistan and the US has "assisted" Yemen in its air strikes on the alleged al-Qaeda stronghold in that country – where Umar, we’re told, received "training" and the actual explosive device.

Yes, the parallels are certainly eerie – but so what? After all, these terrorists are seemingly a simple-minded lot, if the behavior and demeanor of, say, Richard Reid is any indication. How many different explosive substances are available for such a "job," and, at any rate, what else can one expect from the TSA in response except a bunch of useless and needlessly intrusive regulations that have little relevance to what happened? And, of course, the US, it seems, is always launching some new attack or military campaign, somewhere, so the timing is pure chance. Right?

What’s more, the pattern fails when we take into account our own mindset, eight years after the Shoe-na’bomber affair: back then, we were all too frightened out of our wits to really question anything the government told us, and the news media reported. We took it all at face value, and trusted in the gods that we wouldn’t all be blown to smithereens in the next attack, which – for all we knew – could have come at any time.

Eight years later, our mental processes have been quickened, through bitter experience, and a growing cynicism which leads us to notice – and question – several seeming anomalies, such as: why, when Umar’s own father – a prominent banker – contacted the US embassy, and met with the CIA as well as the Nigerian intelligence agency, and warned them his son might pose a danger, was Umar allowed on a plane entering the US? Authorities tell us that he was in a database, consisting of over half a million people, said to pose a risk, but not on the "no fly" list, in spite of his own father’s warning.

How could this happen? Inquiring minds want to know.

Another break in the Shoe’na-bomber pattern is Umar himself, whose life of wealth and privilege stands in stark contrast to Reid’s. While Reid was the poor son of a jailbird, a nobody with an apparently limited mental capacity, Umar is the son of Dr. Umaru Mutallab, former economics minister in the Nigerian government and one of the country’s most prominent bankers: schooled at the exclusive British International School in Lome, Togo, and an aspiring mechanical engineer, he had a bright future ahead of him, and if any single word could be used to characterize his life prior to the Christmas day incident, it would be access.
Access not only to the best schools and opportunities, and to his posh London digs, but also access to planes without the proper documents, as one Kurt Haskell, who was on the same flight with Umar, testifies:

“I was on this flight today and am thankful to be alive. My wife and I were returning from an African safari and had this connecting flight through Amsterdam. I sat in row 27, which was 7 rows behind the terrorist. I got to see the whole thing take place and it was very scary. Thanks to a few quick acting people I am still alive today. "…I was next to the terrorist when he checked in at the Amsterdam airport early on Christmas. My wife and I were playing cards directly in front of the check in counter. This is what I saw (and I relayed this to the FBI when we were held in customs):"An Indian man in a nicely dressed suit around age 50 approached the check in counter with the terrorist and said ‘This man needs to get on this flight and he has no passport.’ The two of them were an odd pair as the terrorist is a short, black man that looked like he was very poor and looks around age 17(Although I think he is 23 he doesn’t look it). It did not cross my mind that they were terrorists, only that the two looked weird together. The ticket taker said ‘you can’t board without a passport.’ The Indian man then replied, ‘He is from Sudan, we do this all the time.’. I can only take from this to mean that it is difficult to get passports from Sudan and this was some sort of sympathy ploy. The ticket taker then said ‘You will have to talk to my manager,’ and sent the two down a hallway. I never saw the Indian man again as he wasn’t on the flight. It was also weird that the terrorist never said a word in this exchange. Anyway, somehow, the terrorist still made it onto the plane. I am not sure if it was a bribe or just sympathy from the security manager."

This goes way beyond weird, all the way to sinister. Perhaps we should take Janet Napolitano’s assurance that “right now we have no indication that it is part of anything larger” with a gargantuan grain of salt. Not only that, but maybe we should simply make a new rule, as follows: anything Madame Napolitano or any government official says about this or any other similar incident should be considered, at the outset, an outright lie. Assuming deception as the default, we might be better off believing the exact opposite. This argument is especially compelling in light of what Mr. Haskell has to say about the aftermath of the Christmas bomb attempt:

"FBI also arrested a different Indian man while we were held in customs after a bomb sniffing dog detected a bomb in his carry on bag and he was searched after we landed. This was later confirmed while we were in customs when an FBI agent said to us ‘You are being moved to another area because this area is not safe. Read between the lines. Some of you saw what just happened.’(The arrest of the other Indian man). I am not sure why this hasn’t made it into any news story, but I stood about 15-20 feet away from the other Indian man when he was cuffed and arrested after his search."

Why isn’t the "mainstream" media reporting this? Well, perhaps they just don’t know about it: or it could be they do know and have been asked to keep a lid on it by the authorities, not the first time such a thing has happened when it comes to the dissemination of "sensitive" information.

In any case, given the veracity of Haskell’s account, it is clear that, contrary to news reports, Umar was no "lone nut," but had at least one accomplice with him on board the plane. Furthermore, both of his accomplices – the one who got him on the plane without a passport, and the one nabbed by the bomb-sniffing dog – may have been Indians.

What India has to do with all this is sheer speculation. While India’s foreign intelligence service, the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), stands accused by Pakistanis of being behind much of the sectarian strife that riles the region, it’s unclear – to me, at least – what interest they would have in stirring the pot in faraway Yemen, the supposed source of the plot. If, however, it should suddenly be discovered that the "real" source of all this lies in the tribal regions of Pakistan, where Washington insists Osama bin Laden & Co. have set up their world headquarters, the Indian connection would make sense.

Haskell concludes his account as follows:

"What also didn’t make the news is that we were held on the plane for 20 minutes after it landed! A bomb could have gone off then. This wasn’t too smart of security to not let us off the plane immediately.

"You can see what time I am writing this as I am having a hard time sleeping tonight. Just thought some of you would like to know what I saw, Merry Christmas."

A telling note of authenticity there: clueless bureaucrats keep him on a plane that might be about to explode, and a Merry Christmas to all – and to all a good night!

No wonder the poor guy couldn’t sleep. If I were in his shoes, I wouldn’t sleep for a week. And if, somehow, I did manage to take a cat nap or two, I’d dream of Umar being led onto the plane, passport-less, escorted by his mysterious helpers, including several demonic figures lurking in the background, chortling and rubbing their hands together in gleeful anticipation.

We are asked to believe that a highly privileged young man, with everything to live for, was suddenly seized with a desire to commit suicide as an act of jihad: that he disappeared from his life of ease, on a street lined with Mercedes Benzes and Ferraris, in a fashionable district of London, and traveled to Yemen, where he received what may have been a defective bomb, which was sewn into his underwear by his jihadist trainers. This bomb then went undetected in Amsterdam airport, where the security arrangements are said to be tight (and a personal interview is conducted), and where he was let on a plane headed for the US in spite of explicit warnings given by his own father.

I’m not buying it, and, furthermore, in the context of Haskell’s testimony, another narrative seems just as likely: that this was a staged incident, a false flag operation, launched by those who have everything to gain by ramping up the atmosphere of hysteria and fear that regularly precedes America’s wars. This – admittedly speculative – scenario, of which I am equally skeptical, is buttressed, however, by the testimony of Jasper Schuringa – the passenger who leapt out of his seat on the other side of the plane, put out the fire, and secured Umar in a headlock – who says of the alleged terrorist:“He was shaking. He didn’t resist anything. It’s just hard to believe that he was trying to blow up this plane. He was in a trance. He was very afraid.”

He didn’t resist? This hardly seems like the behavior one might expect of some fanatic jihadist bent on destruction and meeting those virgins in the afterlife.

The simplistic narrative that took shape as the news broke is already beginning to break up into something a bit more complicated, as additional information comes out, including this brief news item that just came across the wires:

"A passenger aboard the same Northwest Airlines flight that was attacked on Christmas Day was taken into custody here Sunday after becoming verbally disruptive upon landing, officials said.

"A law enforcement official said the man was Nigerian and had locked himself in the airliner’s bathroom. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation was ongoing.

"Delta Air Lines spokeswoman Susan Elliott said crew members requested that security remove the man from Flight 253 after he became disruptive. The remaining 255 passengers got off safely, she said.

"Airport spokesman Scott Wintner said it was the same flight on which a man tried to set off an explosive on Christmas Day.

"’The pilot requested emergency assistance upon arrival,’ he said. Security and airline personnel are on edge since the attempted terror attack on Christmas Day, and the law enforcement official said that lesser incidents had been reported on other flights arriving in Detroit, but the incident with the Nigerian man had sparked the most concern."

Whether Nigerian, or Indian, something is up here, and it seems to have little to do with al-Qaeda, which – breaking its past habit of promptly taking "credit" – has yet to claim responsibility for the attempted attack. More grounds for suspicion: allegations that the Detroit incident was planned and carried out by al-Qaeda in Yemen can be traced back to "IntelCenter," a mysterious private contractor with a dubiousreputation [.pdf] (see frames 89-100) that does business with the intelligence community.

Another shoe is bound to drop – the arrest of this other "Nigerian" may be it, along with the surprising news that Detroit, for some reason, seems to be the latest "terrorist" target – and when it does, I’m wondering how much closer to the truth we’ll get. One thing is certain, however, and it is this: look on the pronouncements of government officials with a very jaundiced eye.

Already Joe Lieberman and several Republicans are calling for more preemptive strikes on targets in Yemen, and it’s not hard to see that the US is very close to opening up yet another "front" in our eternal "war on terrorism." Deeper into the quagmire we go – and those demons in my dreamscape are chortling ever louder.

From UK Daily Mail
Drug gang hitmen shot dead the grieving family of an elite Mexican marine who died after taking part in a raid that killed a notorious drug lord.

Gunmen armed with assault rifles burst into the family’s home in Quintin Arauz in the southern state of Tabasco on Monday, killing the serviceman’s mother, brother, sister and aunt.
It appeared to be a revenge attack for a Mexican navy operation last week that killed the boss of a major drug cartel, Arturo Beltran Leyva.
…

Despite the deployment of 49,000 troops across Mexico, broad daylight shootings are common and killings by drug gangs have soared to a record of well above 7,000 this year.

Torture, decapitations and other atrocities have become common.

The rising bloodshed has alarmed the U.S. government and hurt Mexico’s image as a relatively stable destination for foreign investors and tourists.

Monday, December 28, 2009

Five hundred international lawmakers, diplomats and academics met in Jerusalem Dec. 16-17 to consider the threat of “mushrooming” criticism of Israel. “The Global Forum for Combating Global Anti-Semitism” was hosted by the government of Israel. Its premise is that criticism of Israel, her government, and military policies toward Palestinians is anti-Semitic if it is “strong” or uses Nazi/apartheid imagery.

This criterion for anti-Semitism is shared by the Anti-Defamation League and its Office of Global Anti-Semitism in the US State Department. In fact, ADL head Abe Foxman and the State Department’s Hannah Rosenthal (Special Envoy to Combat Anti-Semitism) were honored guests at the conference.

Israel’s Foreign Minister, Avigdor Lieberman quoted Foxman and said much of the world has “crossed the line” from legitimate criticism to an epidemic of anti-Semitism. Diaspora Foreign Minister Yuli Edelstein also spoke for Israel. He warned that global anti-Semitism “has been able to gain endorsement from academics, media outlets, and even political parties.” Edelstein went so far as to say:

to be ‘anti-Israel’ is to be anti-Semitic. To boycott Israel, Israeli professors and Israeli businesses, these are not political acts, these are acts of hate, acts of anti-Semitism!...Look at the reality Israelis face when traveling to international athletic, business and academic events. More and more, when they arrive in Sweden, Turkey, England, and even the United States, they must lecture and perform before hostile or even violent crowds, requiring police protection. We must not hesitate to expose this hatred for what it is. It is a strong and vile form of xenophobia [fear of foreigners]. It expresses itself through violence, mockery and exclusion. It is directed toward the outside, toward that which is different, in appearance, speech or prayer." "It is discrimination against Jews, because they are Jews. In short, it is anti-Semitism." (Jerusalem Post, Dec. 16, 2009, “Verbatim: Anti-Semites Have Warped Tiny Israel Into Goliath”)

In its 2008 report to Congress, the Office of Global Anti-Semitism says "classic anti-Semitism" is the New Testament belief that Jews masterminded the crucifixion of Christ 2000 years ago. (See U.S. Government, Talmud Mock New Testament) ADL says anti-Semitism is harsh criticism of Israel. ADL agrees with the State Department and the government of Israel that anti-Semitism is visual or verbal comparison of Israeli leaders or military to Nazis. Webster’s New 20th Century Dictionary defines anti-Semitism as “fearing Jews or Jewish things.” Israel is a quintessentially Jewish thing. Thus, fearing Israel, its leaders, or military is anti-Semitic.

Are beliefs of Christians and critics of Israel’s policies really an ominous scourge which should be silenced by governments worldwide?

Lest We Forget

In 1982, largely in response to sporadic rocket attacks from the north, Israel killed at least 19,500 in three days of saturation bombing of refugee camps in southern Lebanon. ADL was Israel's PR bulldog then, as it is today. ADL and the Israeli government downplayed the casualties and damages at Sidon as well as Beirut.

Yet Stan Mooneyham—highly respected leader of World Vision International, a Christian relief organization—managed to penetrate the area much sooner than other Western observers. He reported:

If the Israeli figure of 165 killed in Sidon is accurate, I saw all but 10 of those bodies in one school basement still unburied three weeks after the invasion. That says nothing about the township of Ein-el-Hillweh just outside of Sidon which had a normal population of 60,000 and was obliterated by saturation bombing…There is no Ein-el-Hillweh anymore. Never before have I seen such total destruction, not even in Minagua, the earthquake-stricken capital of Nicaragua. If the world's war-makers and peace-makers want to see what saturation bombing looks like, they should look here. Israel, a country skilled in making the desert blossom like a rose, knows how to turn rose into desert. . .it's one of the major massacres of modern times.

As the head of an international relief organization bringing $400,000 of medical and relief supplies to victims of this modern holocaust, Mooneyham was astonished that Israel refused to allow distribution of such necessities, even two weeks after fighting ended and the area was secure! He explicitly described the smell of rotting bodies, the pervasive wreckage and grief of large communities blitzed out of existence.

Mooneyham’s viewing of Lebanon prompted him to make an ominous comparison: “The sheer magnitude of this one visible piece of the Israeli war machine is incredible. David seems determined to become Goliath.” (World Vision Magazine, September, October 1982)

Is this Christian observer’s account anti-Semitic? According to Israel, ADL, the US State Dept., and Webster’s New 20th Century Dictionary, it is. His articles harshly criticize Israeli national policy, her leaders and military. He also expresses "fear of Jews and Jewish things" - generals such as Ariel Sharon who ordered the attack and the Israeli military's homicidal hatred of Arab refugees and indifference to their sufferings. (Israeli General Rafael Eitan described the refugees during the bombardment as "cockroaches in a bottle.") Mooneyham did not compare Israel in 1982 to Nazis. (He compared Israel to Goliath.) But he easily could have.

In 1982, ADL and Israel argued that, considering Israel's "right to defend herself," her military response of saturation bombing on southern Lebanon was necessary, just, and proportionate. Virtually all politicians, big media, and all major Christian leaders (except for Mooneyham) were either silent or defended Israel.

After “Operation Cast Lead” in Gaza last year, most evangelicals similarly agreed with ADL and Israel that Israel's “right to exist” was challenged by sporadic rocket fire from Gaza and her response of bombardment and continuing blockade has been appropriate.

Ever Broadening Definition of Anti-Semitism

In contrast to the defective definitions we have considered, actual anti-Semitism is the racist belief that all Jews are genetically subversive, degenerate and corruptive. Hitler taught that to a generation of Germans.

But it is not anti-Semitic to protest what you sincerely believe to be grievous injustice by Israel's leadership. All the Hebrew prophets, including John the Baptist and Jesus Christ, did so. In fact, it was always the false prophetic majority who blessed ungodly Jewish leadership unconditionally. This perfectly describes the evangelical position over the past century.

If you listen to critics of Israel today, you will virtually never hear them criticize Jews according to racist criteria as Hitler did. (Sixteen international and European humanitarian and human rights groups have just released a report critical of Israel's "collective punishment" of the Gazans. A similar report by Amnesty International is typical of many.) Rather they complain of human rights abuses by Israel. They say the Palestinians have been driven to fanaticism and terrorism by Israeli oppression. Whether or not you agree, such criticism can’t be properly termed anti-Semitism. Yet more than a billion of such dissidents are now labeled as anti-Semitic by Israel, ADL, and our US State Dept.

Israel's name-calling of critics during the recent Jerusalem conference is dangerous and irresponsible. It ignores the possibility that many (including Jews) use strong words out of love for Israel and the Jewish people. They may employ “tough love” language to bring Israel to what they believe is reality. They want Israeli leaders and war makers to realize the extreme danger their policies and actions might have on the future of Israel and the safety of all Jews. Many Jews are concerned that Israel’s actions may cause a massive backlash of actual violent and vulgar anti-Semitism worldwide. Instead of softening, Israel gives concerned Jews and the world only two options: "Don’t strongly criticize Israeli policies and be our friend, or oppose our actions and be branded a hateful anti-Semite."

Israel’s two simplistic options threaten millions. Under ADL’s hate crimes laws in countries such as Germany and Canada, the accusation of anti-Semitism can easily embroil the victim in financially devastating litigation, huge fines and even imprisonment if convicted. A year ago, Australian Holocaust questioner Dr. Fredrick Toben narrowly avoided a probable five years of imprisonment under a German-EU charge of anti-Semitism; the charge was largely incurred because of his "anti-Semitic" doubts that the six-million figure of Jewish Holocaust dead was accurate.

Evangelical Christians are also directly threatened by broad, incriminating definitions of anti-Semitism. ADL's Dept. of Global Anti-Semitism accuses hundreds of millions of evangelical, Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and other Christians of being “classic anti-Semites” for believing the New Testament account of Jewish complicity in the crucifixion. (See U.S. Government, Talmud Mock New Testament) Tens of millions of evangelicals still support Israel unconditionally and inherit a 20th century pro-Zionist tradition to which Israel owes the bulk of its nationhood and success. But they are now, incredibly, viewed by the US State Department and Israel's public relations arm, ADL, as anti-Semitic. They are already regarded by Canada as "anti-Semitic hate criminals" if they speak their convictions publically.

Who remains free from possible suspicion of anti-Semitism? Only people with no opinion at all or those too cowardly to open their mouths. At the rate ADL and Israel are expanding the definition of anti-Semitism, an "anti-Semitic hate criminal" could soon be anyone who does not slavishly support whatever Israel does—even if it is outrageously evil.

How will ADL respond if alleged anti-Semitism increases? I’ll make a New Year’s prediction. Unless ADL is restrained through worldwide exposure and criticism, it will introduce a new bill into Congress, probably called The Global Anti-Semitism Prevention Act. As an adjunct of ADL’s recently passed federal hate crimes law, this law will make it a federal felony for any American to “strongly” criticize matters Jewish, including the Jewish role in the crucifixion or present Israeli policies.

Tragically, just as most evangelical "watchdog" groups allowed ADL's federal and 45 state hate laws to pass over the past 20 years (for fear of ADL reprisal against in-depth hate law education), they will probably allow this bill to become law—still fearing being labeled anti-Semitic. In one fell swoop, ADL, the U.S. government and the state of Israel will possess a federal statute in America (also to be passed in Canada, Europe, and Australia) making the greatest lovers of Jews in human history—tens of millions of evangelical Christians—into "anti-Semitic" enemies ripe for prosecution.

If that happens, Jesus foretells what comes next: "they will lay their hands on you and will persecute you, delivering you to the synagogues and prisons…for my name's sake." (Luke 21:12)

U.S. intelligence has concluded that the document published recently by the Times of London, which purportedly describes an Iranian plan to do experiments on what the newspaper described as a “neutron initiator” for an atomic weapon, is a fabrication, according to a former Central Intelligence Agency official.

Philip Giraldi, who was a CIA counterterrorism official from 1976 to 1992, told IPS that intelligence sources say that the United States had nothing to do with forging the document, and that Israel is the primary suspect. The sources do not rule out a British role in the fabrication, however.

The Times of London story published Dec. 14 did not identify the source of the document. But it quoted “an Asian intelligence source” – a term some news media have used for Israeli intelligence officials – as confirming that his government believes Iran was working on a neutron initiator as recently as 2007.

The story of the purported Iranian document prompted a new round of expressions of U.S. and European support for tougher sanctions against Iran and reminders of Israel’s threats to attack Iranian nuclear programme targets if diplomacy fails.

U.S. news media reporting has left the impression that U.S. intelligence analysts have not made up their mind about the document’s authenticity, although it has been widely reported that they have now had a full year to assess the issue.

Giraldi’s intelligence sources did not reveal all the reasons that led analysts to conclude that the purported Iran document had been fabricated by a foreign intelligence agency. But their suspicions of fraud were prompted in part by the source of the story, according to Giraldi.

“The Rupert Murdoch chain has been used extensively to publish false intelligence from the Israelis and occasionally from the British government,” Giraldi said.

The Times is part of a Murdoch publishing empire that includes the Sunday Times, Fox News and the New York Post. All Murdoch-owned news media report on Iran with an aggressively pro-Israeli slant.

The document itself also had a number of red flags suggesting possible or likely fraud.

The subject of the two-page document which the Times published in English translation would be highly classified under any state’s security system. Yet there is no confidentiality marking on the document, as can be seen from the photograph of the Farsi-language original published by the Times.

The absence of security markings has been cited by the Iranian ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, as evidence that the “alleged studies” documents, which were supposedly purloined from an alleged Iranian nuclear weapons-related programme early in this decade, are forgeries.

The document also lacks any information identifying either the issuing office or the intended recipients. The document refers cryptically to “the Centre”, “the Institute”, “the Committee”, and the “neutron group”.

The document’s extreme vagueness about the institutions does not appear to match the concreteness of the plans, which call for hiring eight individuals for different tasks for very specific numbers of hours for a four-year time frame.

Including security markings and such identifying information in a document increases the likelihood of errors that would give the fraud away.

The absence of any date on the document also conflicts with the specificity of much of the information. The Times reported that unidentified “foreign intelligence agencies” had dated the document to early 2007, but gave no reason for that judgment.

An obvious motive for suggesting the early 2007 date is that it would discredit the U.S. intelligence community’s November 2007 National Intelligence Estimate, which concluded that Iran had discontinued unidentified work on nuclear weapons and had not resumed it as of the time of the estimate.

Discrediting the NIE has been a major objective of the Israeli government for the past two years, and the British and French governments have supported the Israeli effort.

The biggest reason for suspecting that the document is a fraud is its obvious effort to suggest past Iranian experiments related to a neutron initiator. After proposing experiments on detecting pulsed neutrons, the document refers to “locations where such experiments used to be conducted”.

That reference plays to the widespread assumption, which has been embraced by the International Atomic Energy Agency, that Iran had carried out experiments with Polonium-210 in the late 1980s, indicating an interest in neutron initiators. The IAEA referred in reports from 2004 through 2007 to its belief that the experiment with Polonium-210 had potential relevance to making “a neutron initiator in some designs of nuclear weapons”.

The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), the political arm of the terrorist organisation Mujahedeen-e Khalq, claimed in February 2005 that Iran’s research with Polonium-210 was continuing and that it was now close to producing a neutron initiator for a nuclear weapon.

Sanger and Broad were so convinced that the Polonium-210 experiments proved Iran’s interest in a neutron initiator that they referred in their story on the leaked document to both the IAEA reports on the experiments in the late 1980s and the claim by NCRI of continuing Iranian work on such a nuclear trigger.

What Sanger and Broad failed to report, however, is that the IAEA has acknowledged that it was mistaken in its earlier assessment that the Polonium-210 experiments were related to a neutron initiator.

After seeing the complete documentation on the original project, including complete copies of the reactor logbook for the entire period, the IAEA concluded in its Feb. 22, 2008 report that Iran’s explanations that the Polonium-210 project was fundamental research with the eventual aim of possible application to radio isotope batteries was “consistent with the Agency’s findings and with other information available to it”.

The IAEA report said the issue of Polonium-210 – and thus the earlier suspicion of an Iranian interest in using it as a neutron initiator for a nuclear weapon – was now considered “no longer outstanding”.

New York Times reporters David Sanger and William J. Broad reported U.S. intelligence officials as saying the intelligence analysts “have yet to authenticate the document”. Sanger and Broad explained the failure to do so, however, as a result of excessive caution left over from the CIA’s having failed to brand as a fabrication the document purporting to show an Iraqi effort to buy uranium in Niger.

The Washington Post’s Joby Warrick dismissed the possibility that the document might be found to be fraudulent. “There is no way to establish the authenticity or original source of the document…,” wrote Warrick.

But the line that the intelligence community had authenticated it evidently reflected the Barack Obama administration’s desire to avoid undercutting a story that supports its efforts to get Russian and Chinese support for tougher sanctions against Iran.

This is not the first time that Giraldi has been tipped off by his intelligence sources on forged documents. Giraldi identified the individual or office responsible for creating the two most notorious forged documents in recent U.S. intelligence history.

In 2005, Giraldi identified Michael Ledeen, the extreme right-wing former consultant to the National Security Council and the Pentagon, as an author of the fabricated letter purporting to show Iraqi interest in purchasing uranium from Niger. That letter was used by the George W. Bush administration to bolster its false case that Saddam Hussein had an active nuclear weapons programme.

Giraldi also identified officials in the “Office of Special Plans” who worked under Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith as having forged a letter purportedly written by Hussein’s intelligence director, Tahir Jalail Habbush al-Tikriti, to Hussein himself referring to an Iraqi intelligence operation to arrange for an unidentified shipment from Niger.

CN) - A suburban Chicago police officer Tasered a man 11 times while he was having a diabetic seizure, and the 56 seconds of needlessly inflicted electric shock, "inflicted ... while he was lying unresponsive on the floor of his bedroom, permanently scarred [him] and caused him neurological damage that has not abated," the man claims in Chicago Federal Court.
Prospero Lassi says he suffered a diabetes-induced seizure at home on April 9. His roommate called 911, and police from LaGrange Park and Brookfield responded, with EMTs from LaGrange Park.
Lassi says his roommate explained to police that he was having a diabetic seizure. Lassi "was not alert and could not move his body."
When the EMTs asked the cops to help them move Lassi from where he was lying on the floor, Lassi says, one of his "arms flailed during his diabetes-induced seizure, striking one of the LaGrange and Brookfield defendants. At no time did Mr. Lassi intentionally strike or offensively touch any of the LaGrange or Brookfield defendants."
Lassi says LaGrange Park Officer Darren Pedota responded by Tasering him 11 times, for nearly a minute, as he lay helpless.
He was hospitalized for 5 days, and was unable to work for 3 months because of the attack, "and his quality of life has suffered substantially," Lassi says.
"At no time did Mr. Lassi do anything to warrant the use of force against him. Mr. Lassi was never cited, arrested, or charged with any crime," according to the complaint.
He seeks punitive damages for battery, excessive force, and failure to intervene. He is represented by Arthur Loevy of Loevy & Loevy.